This invention relates generally to the structure of shoes, more specifically shoe soles. This invention relates particularly to the structure of athletic shoe soles. Still more particularly, this invention relates to a lateral stability sipe that allows any shoe sole to provide significantly improved lateral support to the foot. Still more particularly, this invention relates to the use of a lateral stability sipe in an athletic shoe sole to provide it with sufficient flexibility along a natural axis so as to allow the shoe heel to remain relatively flat under the foot heel even when most of the forefoot of the shoe is lifted off the ground when tilted out sideways to a maximum in natural supination motion.
The applicant has introduced into the art the use of sipes to provide natural deformation paralleling the human foot in pending U.S. application Ser. No. 07/424,509, filed Oct. 20, 1989 now abandoned, Ser. No. 07/478,579, filed Feb. 8, 1990 now abandoned, and Ser. No. 07/539,870, filed on Jun. 18, 1990 now abandoned. It is the object of this invention to elaborate upon a specific form of sipe discussed generally in those earlier applications to apply some of their general principles to other shoe sole structures, including those introduced in other earlier applications. PCT Application No. PCT/US90/06028, which is comprised verbatim of the '509 application and was published as WO 91/05491 on May 2, 1991; PCT Application No. PCT/US91/00720, which is comprised verbatim of the '579 application and was published as WO 91/11924 on Aug. 22, 1991; and PCT Application No. PCT/US91/04138, which is comprised verbatim of the '870 application and was published as WO 91/19429 on Dec. 26, 1991.
In addition to the prior pending applications indicated above, the applicant has introduced into the art the concept of a theoretically ideal stability plane as a structural basis for shoe sole designs. That concept as implemented into shoes such as street shoes and athletic shoes is presented in pending U.S. applications Ser. Nos. 07/219,387, filed on Jul. 15, 1988, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,349, issued Feb. 5, 1991; 07/239,667, filed on Sep. 2, 1988, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,819, issued Jun. 7, 1994; 07/400,714, filed on Aug. 30, 1989 now abandoned; 07/416,478, filed on Oct. 3, 1989 now abandoned; 07/463,302, filed on Jan. 10, 1990 now abandoned; and 07/469,313, filed on Jan. 24, 1990 now abandoned, as well as in PCT Application No. PCT/US89/03076 filed on Jul. 14, 1989, and subsequent PCT Applications filed by the applicant. PCT Application No. PCT/US89/03076, which is generally comprised of the virtually the entire '819 Patent verbatim (FIGS. 1-28) and major portions of the '349 Patent also verbatim (FIGS. 29-37) and was published as International Publication Numbers WO 90/00358 on Jan. 25, 1990; PCT Application No. PCT/US90/04917, which is comprised verbatim of the '714 application, except for FIGS. 13-15 (which were published as FIGS. 38-40 of WO 90/00358) and was published as WO 91/03180 on Mar. 21, 1991; PCT Application No. PCT/US90/05609, which is comprised verbatim of the '478 application and was published as WO 91/04683 on Apr. 18, 1991; PCT Application No. PCT/US91/00028, which is comprised verbatim of the '302 application and was published as WO 91/10377 on Jul. 25, 1991; PCT Application No. PCT/US91/00374, which is comprised verbatim of the '313 application and was published as WO 91/11124 on Aug. 8, 1991.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the new invention to elaborate upon the application of the principle of the lateral stability sipe to conventional shoe sole structures.
It is an overall objective of this application to show additional forms and variations of the lateral stability sipe invention, particularly showing its incorporation into the other inventions disclosed in the applicant's other applications.